Live Life Write

210.4 lbs

14 Days without a Soda

My thinking on scales has changed over the years. It used to be I never cared if I had one or not. I was a skinny person. In fact, I was picked on in school because I was so skinny.

In my thirties when I started to put on 10 or so pounds over the Holidays, I would say, “I won’t stress out about weight. If my clothes start getting tight I’ll just do more exercise.” Yeah, I’m laughing to.

That 10 pounds or so adds up over the years. And with work and school who had time to workout. When I did step on a scale I was shocked to realize I weighed 160 lbs. How? I joined a gym and did good for a while.

Then my life fell into a comfortable spot. I had a job I liked, I was living in New York, I had my friends and we’d go out to good restaurants and drink good wine and liqueur.

The next time I stepped on a scale I weighed 190 pounds. I still did not own a scale. I joined Weight Watchers and had to weigh-in every week. I dropped 20 pounds in 6 months.

Moving back to Michigan, I went into a nutritional tailspin. Being back in Michigan, having to take my Dad to physical therapy and doctor appointments was a big culture shock and I was depressed for the first couple of years. Then I couldn’t find a job.

My Dad had a mid-thigh amputation and I moved back to my hometown, the house I grew-up in, so he could stay in house. With only one leg his life had changed dramatically and I felt sorry for him. Plus, I felt it was my duty. He is my father and everything should not fall on my sister.

My Dad knows nothing about nutrition. He was a meatcutter for over 30 years you would think he would know something, but you would be wrong. He now had one leg and could no longer walk the dogs 5 plus miles a day and ride his bike, but he kept eating every day as if he still did those things. He insisted on eating at Zorba’s Coney Island twice a day. It was easier to give-in than fight it.

I topped out at 283 pounds. I learned to cook by writing a cooking blog. (I plan to carry that over to this blog.) I put my foot down about going to Zorba’s. If my Dad wanted to eat like that, he could. I stopped.

All this has changed my thinking about scales. I give the credit to Weight Watchers. I owe my current success in losing weight to what I learned from WW. And it starts with the scale.

If I had formed the habit of weighing myself a few times a week before I had a weight problem, I could have done something about the Holiday 10 back when my metabolism was faster. I would have realized I needed to change my eating habits and exercise more. It would have been right there in big numbers. Proof that my waist line was growing.

I now own a scale and like it or not, I weight myself a few times a week. I can’t deny it when that number 210.4 is staring right back at me. I have to be accountable. No one but me can change that number.

Another thing I learned from Weight Watchers is you can’t let yourself off the hook, but you have to be kind to yourself. It is about changing your relationship with food. I still eat like a thin person who never gains weight. Loosing weight is hard and I am not good at it. If this were easy, there would be no fat people.

I own a simple Taylor digital scale with huge numbers on it. It has become my friend.

This is what I weigh in the evening with my boots and three layers on. I do my normal weigh-ins in the morning, naked, after a shower. This is why I don’t consider it a real drop unless it is at least 10 lbs. This is a 6.4 lbs. difference.

I think it’s good to weigh yourself periodically just for the reasons you state. It’s better to know than not know. But I’m not interested in following the daily fluctuations. That leads to obsession. Somewhere in the once a week to once a month range works for me. Then I can identify and follow trends.